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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978671">Sunk</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty'>Chaotic_Smutty (Anna_Hopkins)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Active Recruitment [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Crack Treated Seriously, Draco is taking this seriously, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Moral Bankruptcy, Morally Grey Harry Potter, POV Outsider, but the plot isn't particularly serious</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:07:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Days and weeks and months after <i>Active Recruitment</i>: Draco wishes he could un-know so much of what he knows.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Active Recruitment [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>845</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sunk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/19721752">Active Recruitment</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty">Chaotic_Smutty (Anna_Hopkins)</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's funny, <i>Active Recruitment</i> remains my highest-kudosed fic by a landslide even now. I'd been sitting on this sequel for nearly a year, watching the kudos climb higher and higher, and tonight the timing feels right.</p><p>Enjoy! ♥</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter title courtesy of wulcanbiology ♥</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When the Dark Lord had retired for the evening at the ball in July, Draco had gone looking for his cousin only to find that Hadrian Black, his aunt, and his uncles were all missing from the ballroom. He had assumed, reaching for another champagne flute, that they were seeking a private audience regarding the placement of their prospective Death Eater: Aunt Bella's squealing about the torturing squad had not gone unheard by anyone within twenty feet. Most likely, then, he'd see Hadrian again during the Marking Ceremony the following week.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he had come down to breakfast in the morning and stopped, frozen, in the doorway at the sight of his cousin and the Dark Lord sitting together at one end of the long table. Together, as in, Hadrian was in His </span>
  <em>
    <span>lap.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His cousin's sleeves were rolled up, the better for the Dark Lord to thumb over the freshly laid Dark Mark on Hadrian's left forearm. Neither of them noticed Draco's slip in composure at the door in the time it took for him to recover himself, at least; he took his customary place beside his mother, further down the table, and attempted (just as the others were doing) not to stare at the spectacle for too long at a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever the two wizards were talking about, it was mostly inaudible given the distance placed between them and everyone else. Draco could not even guess at the subject; he was too distracted by the way the Dark Lord was </span>
  <em>
    <span>feeding Hadrian off of His plate</span>
  </em>
  <span> with an arm around his cousin's waist. Merlin, they were totally absorbed in each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Lestranges made an appearance midway through the long meal, as they usually did, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>none of them seemed at all surprised.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Only once the three had seated themselves did the Dark Lord seem to take notice of the rest of the room, even; He let go of Draco's cousin and nodded toward the other occupied seats. "Go and socialize," He ordered fondly, sliding a hand over Hadrian's cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His cousin got up with obvious reluctance, but did as he was told, sliding into a seat beside Draco to pile fruit on his plate. Draco ignored the weight of his Lord's stare, for the moment, eyeing the growing pile of citrus and berries instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Good morning, cousin," Hadrian greeted brightly. "Is that dragonfruit?" He pointed to a sliver of the speckled fruit in question on Draco's plate.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The rest of the first day continued in much the same vein, with Hadrian trailing after their Lord as though on a leash until he was dismissed to interact with the rest of the Manor's occupants. Mother suggested to Draco that he 'ought to accompany our Cousin on a tour of the grounds', which meant 'keep an eye on him'; in doing so, he managed to actually socialize with the other boy, and it emerged that Hadrian was really quite sane, when he wasn't around the Dark Lord. He played Quidditch - they ran a few friendly Seekers' Duels on the pitch, drilled some Chaser maneuvers that Hadrian had seen in the latest </span>
  <em>
    <span>Quidditch Weekly,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and raced aimlessly around the pitch and the surrounding gardens for a while on the Firebolts that Father had recently acquired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the Dark Lord descended on the scene, and Hadrian bade Draco farewell 'until later', running a hand through his hair that only served to tangle it before he flew down to meet Him and press close to His side. Their Lord did not even wait for Draco to make the formal gestures of respect before He was enveloping Hadrian in His arms and Disapparating in His signature swirl of dark fog.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow it did not occur to Draco until much later that they were fucking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once he had the thought, though, it was terribly obvious, and he felt rather dumb for not having noticed from the start. Over the month to follow, Draco even had the misfortune of </span>
  <em>
    <span>catching</span>
  </em>
  <span> them at it - not one, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>twice.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A week or so into August, he was making his way back to his rooms and passed by a usually-unoccupied study, whose door had not been Silenced and was indeed partially ajar. The soft sounds coming from the room had not initially registered as sexual to his ears, and Draco had come closer, thinking someone was... well, crying. One of the new recruits to the Outer Circles, maybe, who wasn't taking well to the Mark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he heard the bitten-off moan and cry of 'my Lord, oh-" and nearly tripped over himself backing away, fleeing the scene by an alternate route and hoping the Dark Lord hadn't heard his footsteps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second time had been more brazen: one of the balconies overlooking the courtyard in the middle of the Manor, which was perfectly visible from the windows of Draco's study at night. He had actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen</span>
  </em>
  <span> the Dark Lord bending Hadrian over the stone railing, that time; they had been still clothed, thankfully, but...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had expected to be punished most severely for the glimpse, but either he hadn't been noticed - entirely possibly given how quickly Draco closed the curtains and hid in his bedroom - or the Dark Lord had </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant</span>
  </em>
  <span> for them to be seen. Technically, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> somewhat the point of sex on a balcony, Draco had to admit. That did not mean he wanted to be the voyeur in question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An irony: the one time Draco yielded to self-preservation over the need to generate gossip, was when he would have gotten the juiciest bit of information. Instead, he did not discover the Secret of Hadrian Black until the first of September, at the same time as his Housemates, when his cousin joined him on the Hogwarts Express.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Dark Lord had been </span>
  <em>
    <span>on the platform,</span>
  </em>
  <span> planting a chaste kiss on Hadrian's cheek that would have been almost familial were it not for the arm around his waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hadrian followed Draco onto the Express, his trunk shrunken to fit in his pocket, and introduced himself to Draco's unmarked Housemates (who had therefore been absent all summer). When Daphne batted her eyelashes at Hadrian and offered him the use of her first name, Draco had the sudden, vivid image of her dismembered body on the dining room table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You are welcome to call me Hadrian, Daphne," said his cousin, "but I must confess I am already... taken, if that is the direction your interests lie." He traced a finger over his left sleeve, where Draco knew the Dark Lord had hidden his Mark just that morning for what he had referred to as a 'safety precaution'.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While the others paled somewhat and drew back, Draco spoke up. "So, Cousin, do you think you'll be Sorted with the first-years? It's been ages since Hogwarts had any transfer students."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hadrian smiled, the sort of smile Draco more often saw him show the Dark Lord when he was in His lap at meals. It made Draco's stomach clench, in fear or something else, he didn't know. "Ah, I must have forgotten to tell you," he said airily. "I'm not transferring from anywhere." From a hidden pocket, he drew out a school over-robe - in Gryffindor colors. "It has been a pleasure meeting you all again," Hadrian winked. "For now, I had best find my Housemates and reassure them that I have not really gone missing. Appearances, and so on. I'm sure you can understand."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drew his wand, aiming it at his face, and closed his eyes, a look of concentration briefly crossing his face. When he opened them again, the greyish hazel Draco knew was replaced with an almost-familiar vivid green. He didn't put the pieces together, though, until Hadrian placed his wand-tip on his forehead and pulled away a glamour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"See you later, Cousin," Hadrian - no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Potter</span>
  </em>
  <span> - purred, and departed their compartment before any of them could say a word.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next time he saw Potter was hours later. At least now Draco wasn't the only one staring at the Gryffindor in total disbelief: he was acting perfectly normal with his little clique at the lions' table, probably fielding compliments on his new hairstyle -</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Long hair suits you, my darling," Draco had overheard the Dark Lord murmur one summer night-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>- and appeared completely oblivious to the numerous eyes on him, including those from Slytherin who had gotten wind of the new scandal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the Head Table, Draco noticed that his godfather looked particularly perturbed by the situation, and realized, belatedly, that he had not seen Severus at all since before the Ball. Which meant he </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn't know.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh Merlin, he didn't know. And that meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>Draco wasn't allowed to tell him.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The Dark Lord had to have excluded his godfather on purpose until now - he'd invited every other member of the Inner Circle to dinner at least once - and it was only now, with Potter's reveal on the train, that the news would eventually reach him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dumbledore gave his usual opening speech, and Draco was sure nearly half of the students in green weren't listening. They were exchanging glances between themselves, first alarmed, then with a growing consensus. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wait,</span>
  </em>
  <span> they all seemed to be thinking, </span>
  <em>
    <span>if the Chosen One is on our side...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Potter glanced over to their table, at the end of the meal, and winked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Draco could now describe the stirring in his stomach as a sense of impending doom.</span>
</p>
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